jdhmnovel Chapter 121: Alchemist and Artist
Chapter 121: Alchemist and Artist
Chapter 121: Alchemist and ArtistJohn sighed, holding a sword in his hand.
“Why am I even here?”
A few weeks had passed since the start of school, and Destiny had called John out to practice in the training fields. The two were known as quite the odd pair. Nobody was strong enough to fight against the hero, and nobody was weak enough to go against the manaless boy. This left the duo to fight exclusively against each other, but this arrangement was more than fine. John wasn’t exactly strong, but he was skilled in his own way. And that was exactly what Destiny was looking for.
Ever since the half-elf had started receiving training from Lupin, his control over his mana reinforcement had shot through the roof. As seen during his fight on the island, he began to understand the concept of applying it to his body parts, rather than just as a thin shield over his skin. It could even be said that his fighting skills were superior to his casting skills, which hadn’t been the case during their time in the Town of Beginnings.
However, he wasn’t getting the swordsmanship training he wanted. Lupin was quite the swordsman, but this school existed to build mages, not those looking to become proficient at the art of specific weapons. Destiny was undoubtedly gaining skill in his swordsmanship, but it just wasn’t what he was looking for.
“I told you. To help me train,” Destiny explained for the umpteenth time.
“Train what?” John said, stifling a yawn. “And how am I supposed to help?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Destiny sighed. “Look, I know you can fight with a sword. You can fight with anything, it feels like. And if I don’t use any mana, then we’re at the same level of strength, right?”
John’s eyes widened in interest. “Oh? What, are you looking to train raw skill?”
“What, you find that interesting?” Destiny scoffed. “Interested in the way of the sword or something?”
“No,” John shook his head. “But it’s definitely something worth training. Enough that I’m willing to help you with it.”
“...keep going.”
“Well, put it this way. Let’s say your mana is like a multiplier of sorts, a way to boost whatever skill you have as a regular human. Then there are two ways to improve, right? You can increase your multiplier, or you can increase your base stats.”
John flinched. He waited for Zero to say something, but thankfully, his soul had no comment on the sheer amount of hypocrisy that’d come out of his mouth.
“I see,” Destiny said slowly, nodding. “Then you’ll help?”
John sighed, raising his sword. “I mean, I guess. I thought you joined Scholaris to learn swordsmanship, though. What’s wrong with the classes here?”
“...it’s too predictable.”
John frowned. “What?”
“The students, they’re too simple. The teachers and Lupin are fine, but everyone else only does what they’re taught. After a bit, it’s too easy to read them.”
John suddenly understood. It was the curse of a genius. Destiny was simply too talented for his peers, even in a school such as this. Well, that should’ve been expected. Something like this was bound to happen to a [Protagonist] of Destiny’s nature.
“Really? There’s no one?” John frowned.
“Well… no, that’s not true. But you fight differently. You fight dirty. And I think you’ll catch things others won’t. Or am I wrong?”
John grimaced, scratching the back of his neck. How troublesome. Well, Destiny hadn’t said anything wrong.
“Fine. It’s not like I’m doing anything else, anyway.”
“I’ll be in your care, then.”
They began clashing swords, and for the first time, John was dominating. He wasn’t a swordsman or anything like that. But still, it would be embarrassing if he, with his hundreds, if not thousands of years of experience, lost to Destiny, who only had a few.
Besides, Destiny was far more used to fighting monsters, especially with skills he’d only picked up in this world.
John’s specialty, as he’d said so often, was fighting people.
In a few swift moves, John’s sword interlocked with Destiny’s, and his foot came flying out, sending a swift kick to his opponent's gut. Destiny was knocked down, but to his credit, he managed to hold onto the handle of his blade.
“You’ve been relying on mana too much,” John noted.
“Yeah. Maybe I have,” Destiny muttered, dusting himself off. He held his sword before him once more. “Again.”
John stared, a look of displeasure plastered all over his face. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Again.”
John sighed. Still, Destiny wasn’t going to give up.
“Are you gonna keep trying until you win?” John said carefully.
“Maybe.”hing…”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“It eats away at the user’s lifespan. By a lot. We know what combination of ingredients is causing it, but, well… I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Huh. Interesting.” John nodded slowly, thoughts forming in his eyes. “Why don’t you join us for lunch? We have a few open seats.”
Destiny’s eyes widened. It was good to see John being nice for a change.
“R-really? You mean it?”
“Yeah, come on!” Destiny smiled. “We’ve got open seats. If you’ve got nobody else to sit with, why don’t you join us?”
“Yeah,” John said, his smile a little unusual. “What’s another friend, right?”
~~~
John looked back and forth a couple of times, surprised to see yet another new face at the table.
“...so we all brought someone to share?”
Sitting at the table was a tall, muscular woman with messy orange hair, like some kind of beast. Despite her looks, she seemed to be quite gentle. She bore some resemblance to Danjo, too, in some way. An dwarf? A hybrid, maybe? Could hybrids even get that big? Dwarves were short, right? Still, it was strange. John had never seen her in the fighting class. Was she from another year?
“This is Aurora,” Briar said, patting her on the back.
The pats were quite hard, and it was strange to see a small, skinny girl hitting someone basically double her size in such a way. It was like a chihuahua barking at a husky, except the husky was backing off.
“We met during our final exam. Danjo and I needed someone to engrave runes onto our project,” Briar explained.
“Runes- she’s in the magic circle class?” John said, raising an eye.
“Yeah, it doesn’t look like it, right?” Briar grinned.
“I grew up on a farm,” Aurora said. Despite the teasing, she seemed quite content. “I helped out a lot, but fighting’s not my thing. I really liked drawing, though.”
John nodded. Well, at this point, he shouldn’t be surprised.
“This is Arthur,” Destiny announced. “He’s in the alchemy class.”
“Hi, everyone,” he said, waving shyly.
Celeste smiled at him while Prota nodded. Danjo returned an equally shy wave, and John anticipated that the two of them would get along well. Lunch finished, and everyone scattered to do whatever they had to do. Prota and John had an hour before their next class, so she followed her brother as he went back to his room.
“Who is he?” Prota said as soon as the door closed behind them.
“What? What’re you talking about?”
“Destiny said you invited him. What does John want?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Prota sighed. She didn’t know why he was playing dumb with her. She stared at him pointedly, and the message was clear. It was obvious he had some ulterior motive. She just wanted to know what it was.
John flinched. Damn, was he getting that easy to read? Or had Prota just become that much more perceptive? Well, that in itself wasn’t a bad thing. Besides, was there really a reason to keep a secret from her?
“Yeah,” John sighed. “He’s one of those [Companions] I was talking about, probably, but he has something I can use.”
Prota tilted her head in confusion. A [Character] had something John could use?
“He’s an alchemist,” John explained. “I didn’t get to learn that much about him, but he’s got something special.”
Prota felt a chill run down her spine. The way he said “special” indicated that it was actually something rather reckless and stupid.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” John said, waving his hands in protest. “It’s something that can replicate a mana core, apparently. The downside is that it eats away at your lifespan, but, well…”
He didn’t feel comfortable saying the words out loud. That he was effectively immortal when it came to age. He didn’t know if that was actually true, but given his memories, even without [Resets], he was still hundreds of thousands of years old, and his body hadn’t changed a bit. In the first place, being able to change his physical age at will meant that he couldn’t really die of age, right?
“What?”
Prota was confused, though. She didn’t get it.
Why was it safe for John to take such a drug?
“Prota. I can’t die of old age. Do you know how long I’ve been alive for?”
Suddenly, reality hit her like a truck. Somehow, through everything they’d been through, she'd forgotten that this immature, lazy guy was ancient. He was older than Kit, a Mystic… maybe even older than the professors?
“But it’s perfect. Not because I need a mana core or anything, that’s boring. To be honest, my powers are way more useful, and I’m way better at using them than anything else. But it’s an excuse.”
His eyes were sparkling with excitement. She hadn’t seen him this excited since they’d first met Destiny. Suddenly, he frowned.
“Well, actually… how does that work? What is “lifespan” determined by? Is it biological? Deterministic? Based off the soul, maybe…?”
He shook his head. “Ah, why does it matter? I’m not gonna use this thing that often, right? Still, isn’t it great? I don’t have to hide anymore. Neither do you. Oh, speaking of. How’s your training with the headmaster going?”
“Oh. Um… she wants to see you. Tomorrow.”
~~~
Two weeks ago, near the beginning of the school year.
Prota’s training had begun immediately. The headmaster’s first order had been to see just where Prota was in using her ability.
“Strange,” she muttered as she felt the mana flowing out of her body. “It doesn’t feel like Soul Steal. It’s almost as if I can tell it’s an imitation. And you say you don’t learn magic perfectly?”
Prota shook her head.
“Fascinating. I’ve never instructed anybody in using Soul Steal, perhaps because dragons have a perfect understanding of it from birth, but… well, I did not form an educational institution with no knowledge of teaching myself.”
Training occurred thrice a week from that point onwards. Sofya had been surprised at how well Prota was utilizing her ability for someone who hadn’t even known what it was to start with. Things like withdrawing certain amounts of mana or being discreet with the ability were things she’d never even considered.
The thing that interested Sofya the most, though, was Prota’s fighting habits as well as her staff.
“I didn’t know such a thing existed,” she said, turning the wooden stick over and over in her hands. “For a staff to store mana in such a way, without runes… this is on the level of some of the artifacts we have. You say your brother gave this to you as a gift?”
“Nn… yes,” Prota nodded.
She was shocked. Had John known this whole time? Come to think of it, probably not.
“Most staves merely amplify some kind of magic. Magic circles can be inscribed to accomplish such a task, but something like this… it suits you, though. It is far better than any other staff you could ever use. Guard it wisely.”
Prota nodded. She didn’t need the headmaster to tell her that. She would’ve guarded it with her life, even without having been told to do so.
Finally, it came to her fighting style. The school had far more training options than Prota had initially thought. Magic circles could summon imitations of beasts of all kinds, allowing for a safe yet very realistic simulation. She’d been thrown into one, fighting at full force.
The combination of no restraints and nobody to protect was a great way to see what her “average” fight would look like. Her movement was swift and continuous, with her stamina constantly being replenished by mana recovery. The efficiency and accuracy of her attacks made for quick battles, forcing the headmaster to up the difficulty of the battles every time.
As the opponents got stronger, so did Prota’s tactics. John had assured her that she was free to use everything she had, so that was exactly what she did. Starting off with a single Blossom, then a couple, then buying herself enough time for a Frozen Flame, and finally, against an especially hard golem, a pair of Frozen Bullets, formed with the aid of enhanced reaction time.
It was at that point that she collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Sofya offered her a potion which quickly brought her back to her feet, and as she got up, the look in the headmaster’s eyes was one of amazement. When asked about where she’d learned to fight, all she could say was that John had trained her. When asked where John had learned to fight, all Prota could say was that she didn’t know.
This was where John had been called in to explain.
“She tells me you were her mentor,” Sofya said, sitting at her desk.
“Well, not in the magic aspect,” John said dismissively. “Someone else was her teacher for that.”
“Oh?”
“Can’t say. Sorry. But yeah, in terms of fighting, I guess you could say I taught her how to do things.”
“You guess?”
John shrugged. “I mean, we went through a lot of stuff in the last couple of years. She mostly learned on her own, you know? Through natural combat and practice and stuff. I didn’t tell her to do anything explicitly; just gave her a few pushes.”
That was half true and half lie. Yes, she’d learned through trial and error, but that trial and error was the result of dozens of deaths. Could that really be called natural combat? He didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to say otherwise.
“She tells me you taught her, though. And that she knows not where you learned to fight.”
“Well, I mean… I never really learned. You kinda just pick things up in an effort to survive, you know?”
“You mean to say you learned purely out of necessity?” Sofya said, raising an eye. “I suppose that makes sense. It is a style meant to kill… and it isn’t honourable enough that it would be something one of this profession would make…”
“Hey!” John exclaimed in protest.
“Do you believe yourself to be an honourable man?”
“...no.”
“Exactly. Still, you might just be a genius if you truly taught your sister all on your own. What a shame you were born without mana. Have you ever considered becoming a professor?”
“No,” John laughed. “I don’t do well with lots of kids.”
“A shame. Still, if more of our students could be as talented as you-”
John held up his hands. “Hold on. Let’s not get things twisted. I’m not talented. Just lucky, ok? And besides, is it not better that students aren’t learning out of necessity? If everyone learned the way I did, this country would be in a whole pile of shit, right?”
Sofya smiled, nodding. “Indeed. Hard times create good men, but I suppose it is not so bad to have good times as well. Still, it is strange. You are a child, are you not?”
John flinched. “I, uh… I grew up on the streets. I mean-”
“I understand,” Sofya nodded. “It is unnecessary to bring up your past. But are you sure you have not had a mentor?”
“Uh… I don’t think so, no.”
“Fascinating,” she muttered. “You are currently learning under Lupin, correct?”
“Uh, yeah. Kinda. Why?”
“Come with me.”
~~~
“...hey, explain again why we’re here?”
The sun was setting, but Sofya and John were standing in the center of the stadium grounds where the exams were usually held. Prota was sitting in one of the chairs, watching intently.
“I told you. I would like to see you fight.”
“Me? You wanna see me fight?” John said, pointing to himself.
“Yes, precisely.”
“Hey, I don’t know if you got the memo, but I don’t fight, ok? Does the whole-”
“You are manaless, I know. I am also aware that both our Casting professor and Fighting professor have high expectations of you.”
John flinched. They did? Why? Because of what had happened on the island?
Or because of something else?
“Worry not. I will also hold back this fight. I simply wish to see what you are capable of.”
“...this still has to do with Prota, right?” John said slowly.
“Of course. I have no intention of tutoring you as well.”
“Yeah, thanks. Mind explaining how this is gonna help?”
Sofya sighed as if she were dealing with a toddler, asking why the sky is blue. In her defence, John probably did seem like a toddler to her.
“Because her mana core is not nearly strong enough to fight the way a dragon fights. We have massive mana cores, overwhelming strength, and so the tactics you two use are alien to me. However, they seem to prove useful to her. I presume you are far better at using your fighting style than she is?”
“I’d hope so,” John frowned. “But… well, she’s still a caster, and I’m still a fighter. It’s a little different. Plus, she has a lot more mana than I do.”
“Technique and skill do not equate power. All I need to know is what she should be aiming for.”
John sighed. He hated to admit it, but she was really good at dealing with him. She didn’t get annoyed, didn’t get flustered, and simply shot down all of his questions with logical, irrefutable answers. He walked over to the stands and picked up a training sword, planting it in the ground beside him.
“Yeah, fine. Can you at least tell me if she’s ever gonna be able to fight like a dragon?”
Sofya’s lips curled up a little. “That depends on her. Now, begin.”